


Don't Forget

by SingingInTheRaiin



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Doctor Dad, F/M, Gen, Nobody puts Baby in a corner, Protective Doctor (Doctor Who), Rose and the Doctor get married, The Time War, nonlinear lives, the Doctor gets domestic, this is NOT a Doctor/ofc fic, time travel makes everything confusing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 06:36:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20205346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingInTheRaiin/pseuds/SingingInTheRaiin
Summary: The Doctor keeps seeing the same person appear across time and space. She never recognizes him, at least not until he introduces himself, and then it is immediately apparent how much she does not like him. But who is she, and what is her connection to the Doctor? And how can she exist in so many places at once? And what could be so important that the Doctor has managed to forget all about it?





	1. Chapter 1

“Can I tell you a secret, Doctor? I hate you with every fiber of my being. And trust me, I’ve got a lot more of those than most people.”

The Doctor frowned, unsure of how exactly to respond to a statement like that. “Why do you hate me so much? Is it- is it because I did this to you?”

The old woman lying on the ground huffed out an unhappy laugh. “Of course you would think that it’s so simple. Yes, it’s your fault I’m like this, but no, you didn’t do this to me. And that’s not why I hate you.”

The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows, only feeling more confused. “Then why-?”

“Because you forgot me.” And then she breathed out for the last time.

,,,

“How can I help you, sir?”

The human standing in front of the Doctor had an earnest look on her face, ready to draw in customers, and help those who did come over. “I was looking for-” then he cut himself off suddenly, wondering if this was even a good idea. 

The human grinned, and clapped her hands together. “Ah, shy about popping the question?” The Doctor gave her a wide-eyed look, which only seemed to add to her glee. “I couldn’t help but notice that you have the look of a besotted fool. Well not to worry, sir! With one of my rings, there’s no chance she’ll say no!”

Somehow, this woman’s excited energy gave the Doctor some confidence, and he returned the smile. “Alright, then. So I have some ideas about the design, but I’m not really sure…” he trailed off when he realized that she was giving him a strange look. “What?”

She laughed. “Nobody comes here for their own design, sir. Just tell me about your lover, and I guarantee that I will have the perfect ring for her.”

The Doctor wasn’t quite sure how that worked, but he had come here because he’d been recommended this particular shop by quite a few people. He wondered why anyone with such popularity would work out of a marketplace stall, but decided that that was none of his business. “Alright, well she’s… she’s the most beautiful person in the universe. And everytime she smiles or laughs, I feel like my hearts are going to beat right out of my chest because it’s the most amazing thing in the world, and she’s so kind and compassionate to everyone she meets, and she has this glow, this energy about her that I can’t even describe. She’s saved my life, and makes me feel…” he trailed off, suddenly feeling embarrassed for going on like that to a complete stranger. 

But the human looked so fond that it was easy for the embarrassment to dissipate. “It’s been awhile since I’ve gotten such a romantic in my shop. Don’t you worry, sir, I will make sure that it is absolutely perfect. Just come back in three days. It’ll be four hundred yaros, but we don’t accept any payment until you see the finished product. I just need a name to put down with the order.”

The Doctor arched one eyebrow. “You can make the perfect ring from just a brief description but you still need a name to remember me by?”

She laughed. “Well, I can’t guarantee that I’ll be the one out here when you come back. I’ve got three husbands, and not a one of them is anything but useless at crafting. It’s actually pretty rare that I’m the one out here.”

The Doctor glanced down at the human’s hands. She was wearing multiple bracelets and rings. “Are those-?” 

She glanced down and then tugged three different rings to show off. “My wedding rings. Made ‘em myself. Have a look.” 

The Doctor carefully took the pieces and inspected them. They were quite incredible, and the way that the metal twisted around was like nothing he’d seen before. He handed them back, even more confident in his decision to come here. “They’re beautiful. And I’m the Doctor.”

The light-heartedness of the exchange immediately vanished, and the joy on the merchant’s face was replaced with a cold look. “The Doctor,” she repeated flatly. “Right. Come back in three days and the ring will be done.” Then she turned away from him in clear dismissal.

The Doctor blinked a few times in confusion. What could he have possibly done to upset the merchant so much? But he found himself trusting her to remain professional with his order, and quickly left, not wanting to remain where he was clearly unwanted.

,,,

The Doctor rolled his eyes as he waited impatiently for someone to show up at the front desk. He’d already tapped the bell quite a few more times than was polite, but he was eager to buy the parts he needed, and be on his way. Rose was waiting for him, afterall, and he never liked to make her wait. The only upside was the joy he got at imagining Jackie Tyler’s reaction to Jack. Hopefully he wound up with a slap or two from the fearsome matriarch. 

He had so many plans in mind for the next adventure. He was going to fix up the TARDIS, fly back to the Scixer Market to pick up his finished ring, and then get Rose. He’d probably grab Jack too, just to stop the bastard from complaining too much, but he was, at the very least, going to leave him on the ship after they dropped off the egg that was still waiting with the two humans. 

After they were done with Raxacoricofallapatorius, the Doctor was going to bring Rose to the beaches of Nocirax, where the sand glittered like diamond dust for just four minutes at sunset and four minutes at sunrise each day. He still felt nervous when he thought about what he was going to do there. Rose was only human and she’d someday grow too old to continue running around with him, but he didn’t care. He’d only known her for a year, but it was the happiest year he could remember out of his entire long life. He wanted Rose to spend the rest of her life with him, even if he couldn’t offer her the same in return. And he wanted to make it so that all those pretty boys she encountered would stop flirting with her. 

He hit the bell again, and then finally someone stepped out from the back room. “Alright, alright, I’m coming.” The Doctor was surprised to see a human here, since it was about three thousand years before his favorite apes would discover space travel, but he had more important things on his mind than a minor little mystery. The human looked up at him, almost amused. “What can I help you with?”

“Right, yes, I need a new micro decay regulator for my ship. Please tell me you have one. The last six places I’ve tried had no idea what I was even talking about.” That was the worst part about driving around a ship that was the last of its kind. Repairs were usually more the duct tape and gum kind, since finding the right parts was so rare. But in this case, it was necessary. 

The human grinned. “I can help you with that.” Before the Doctor could cheer, though, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not authorized to sell you that part, though.”

The Doctor immediately frowned. “Why not?”

“Because you’re not a fully certified ship mechanic with a specialty in vortex machines, and something like a micro decay regulator could cause a lot of problems for everyone if you mess it up even a little bit.”

The Doctor wasn’t sure whether he should feel insulted or amused. “How do you know that I’m not a certified mechanic?”

The human rolled her eyes. “Because there’s currently only one person in the world with that certification, and it’s me. Most people don’t see the point in learning about vortex machines because there’s so few out there. But I’m not going to let you blow up the planet because you plugged a wire in the wrong spot. I’ll do the installation or replacement, for just a slight labor charge, and everyone will walk away knowing that they are safe and satisfied.”

“Oi, I happen to be the best mechanic when it comes to my ship. She’s a unique thing, and only I know how to take care of her. I doubt you’ve ever seen anything like her before” The human gave him a doubtful look. “Alright, that’s it. Come on, I’ll show you that I know what I’m doing.”

The human snorted, but she did follow the Doctor back to the ship. He pulled out his key to unlock the door, but noticed that she paused. “Awfully tiny for a spaceship.”

“It’s bigger on the inside.”

The human’s eyes widened, as though she’d been waiting for him to say that, and then brushed past him to walk onto his ship. she looked around the console room, taking in every detail. “Where the hell did you get a TARDIS?”

The Doctor looked at the mechanic with newfound curiosity. “And what do you know about a TARDIS?” 

“I may look young, but I’ve spent a lot of time studying these things,” she mumbled, seeming more caught up on looking around than answering questions. She walked over to the console, and reverently laid her hand down on it. “It’s been so long since I-” and then she abruptly cut herself off and spun around to face the Doctor. “You’re the Doctor?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. How did you-?”

The human squeezed her eyes shut and let out a loud groan. “Of course you are.” She reached up to run a hand through her hair, and then looked the Doctor in the eye. “I’ll install the regulator, free of charge, if you swear that you will leave this place the moment that I’m done.”

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest. “Now I’m willing to let a lot of things go, but I do know that it’s not a great sign when the mechanic suddenly looks like she hates you.”

The human stared at him, looking entirely offended. “The TARDIS is a living thing, and I would never do anything to hurt her! Unlike some people, I draw the line at letting innocents get hurt.”

It felt like the Doctor had just been stabbed in the chest. He had never met this mechanic before, at least not as far as he could recall, but clearly he’d done something to upset her so much. These past few days had just been full of people who hated him, and it was really starting to bother him.

But he could tell that the TARDIS had no problem with letting this human- practically a child, really- do repairs. In fact, she seemed to implicitly trust the human. And while the Doctor hated to ignore his own instincts, he also trusted the TARDIS completely, so if she was okay with it, then he would allow it. With supervision, of course.

He waited with the ship while the human went back to the village for the regulator. It didn’t take long for her to return, though the Doctor felt somewhat guilty for not offering to help when he saw just how large the piece was. 

While the human worked, the Doctor leaned up against the wall near the door, watching nimble hands move wires and prod and poke at various things. He had to admit that it seemed like impressive work, and he also had to admit that this was one of those rare moments where someone else knew more than he did. He’d planned on putting the regulator in and hoping for the best, but this mechanic seemed to actually know what she was doing. It was surprising, considering how young she was, and the fact that she was clearly human, but he didn’t want to interrupt her work by asking questions about her process.

The human stood up, balancing the old regulator in her arms, less than an hour later. “I’ll just be on my way then. Don’t come back here for your next pit stop.” And then she stormed away before the Doctor could even thank her. He sighed, and went over to the console to put in the coordinates for the market. She hummed sympathetically in his mind, but he could tell that she was pleased with the work that had been done.

,,,

When the Doctor walked up to the jewelry stand, the jeweler wasn’t the one standing out there, but instead a young man with a polite look on his face. “I’m picking up a ring. Under the Doctor.”

The man nodded. “Just hang on a moment.” He retreated into the small shop behind him, and then came back out a moment later with a small velvet box. He opened the box and then held it out to the Doctor. Inside were three rings. Two were plain silver bands, though the insides had an inscription in Gallifreyan that translated to ‘love and long life’. Before he could question how the jeweler could have possibly known the dead language, he saw the engagement ring, and felt like his breath had been taken away.

It was a band made of a line of platinum and a line of gold pinched together periodically, delicate silver bows resting on top of each pinch, with another wavy line of silver running along one side. Glittering white gems ran along the top section of the extra silver line. There were four golden roses, made in exquisite detail, resting in the space between several of the pinches, each with its own gem resting in the very center. The main gem of the ring was a perfectly cut piece of zazurarite, which was one of the rarest rocks this side of the universe, well renowned for its natural ability to change color based on the weather. 

The Doctor slowly looked up at the merchant in shock. “This is only four hundred yaros?” It was an amount that translated to about eight hundred British pounds, which couldn’t be even a quarter of what the ring was actually worth. 

The merchant tilted his head. “Is it not to your liking?” 

The Doctor gulped, and quickly shook his head. “No, it’s beautiful. I just don’t understand how the price can be so low. That cost can’t even cover the materials alone, not even touching on the craftsmanship…”

He wasn’t trying to start an argument, but the jeweler was clearly vastly underselling herself. Based on how much she’d seemed to dislike him after learning his name, he was surprised that the price hadn’t gone up, but only four hundred yaros for this brilliant work of art seemed like robbery.

The merchant shrugged. “My wife- the one who makes the jewelry- is the one who sets the prices. I trust that she knows what she is doing.” 

The Doctor quickly scrounged around in his pocket for the money, and then the merchant handed over the ring box for the Doctor to put the rings back into. “The language written inside the wedding bands-”

The merchant shrugged. “My wife is responsible for every detail of every product. Me and the other two spouses are garbage at crafting.”

The Doctor slowly nodded as he pocketed the box, and then thanked the merchant before hurrying back to his ship. He couldn’t wait to take the final step and actually propose. Though now that he thought about it, he wondered if Rose would even accept. What if she had no interest in tying herself down to a thousand year old alien with so much blood on his hands? The Doctor couldn’t even remember the last time he’d felt quite this nervous. He could only hope that it would all work out in the end, as cliche as that was to wish for.

,,,

“Jack, how would you feel about taking a vacation-”

“Yes!”

“-by yourself.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. “Wait, what? Are you planning on ditching me, Doctor?”

The Doctor quickly shook his head. “No, of course not. I just think that there’s something that maybe it would be better if you weren’t around for.” He drew out all of his words so much that it was difficult to follow along.

Jack crossed his arms over his chest and gave the Doctor an assessing look, before suddenly reaching out and playfully shoving against the Doctor’s chest. “You dog! You and Rosie are going to elope off in the stars and have beautiful Time Lord babies, and I’m not even invited?”

“For which part?” Then the Doctor quickly kept talking before Jack could say anything too inappropriate. “We’re not eloping. For one thing, I’m pretty sure that her mother would kill me.”

Jack actually snorted out loud. “Why Doctor, are you afraid of Jackie Tyler?”

The Doctor scowled. “Of course not. Time Lords aren’t afraid of anything. And it’s not like you have any room to talk. I’m sure you’ve gotten yourself into all kinds of trouble in the past week.”

The bastard just laughed, apparently finding a great deal of amusement in the Doctor’s supposed fear. “Anyways, if you’re not eloping, then what are you doing that I’m not allowed to be around for? The TARDIS already makes it impossible for me to find your room when you two are in it, so what else is there that you would need privacy for?”

The Doctor was ever so grateful for his superior physiology that made it so he wasn’t capable of blushing. “We aren’t eloping, but I am going to… going to ask her to marry me.”

Jack’s eyes widened, and then he suddenly threw himself forward to pull the Doctor into a hug. “Congratulations, mate! Of course, the universe will lose two of the most attractive bachelors, but it’ll survive. Can I see the ring?” 

He sounded so excited on the Doctor’s behalf, so the Doctor gave in, and pulled out the velvet box. He snapped it open, but yanked it back when Jack made to grab it. He certainly wasn’t going to risk the former Time Agent losing it or doing anything weird to it. When he was sure that Jack wasn’t going to snatch it, he let him get a closer look. “What do you think?”

Jack whistled. “It’s perfect, she’s going to love it.” He gave the Doctor a friendly slap on the shoulder once the ring was put away again. “Well, I don’t mind taking a little bit of a vacation, but only if you promise to invite me to the wedding.”

The Doctor opened his mouth to remind Jack that there was no point in holding a traditional 21st century English wedding ceremony, but before any words could come out, everything went black, and the next time he opened his eyes, he was in a garishly decorated game show house, with absolutely no idea how he’d gotten there.

,,,

Even as Rose promised that she was going to stay and fight with him, the Doctor knew that he couldn’t let her. He reached into his jacket pocket, and his fingers brushed across the top of the velvet box that he’d been carrying since the moment he’d bought it. He’d planned the perfect trip so that he could ask during the perfect moment, but now he knew that he’d never get his chance. And he didn’t want it. Being with him was too dangerous for Rose. So he sent her home, and tried to ignore how completely betrayed she sounded. At least she would be safe.

,,,

As Rose removed the letters from the wall, and said that she’d scattered her through time and space, some potentially important thoughts itched at the back of the Doctor’s mind. But right now Rose was dying, and there was nothing more important than that.

,,,

The Doctor went to toss aside his leather jacket after picking out an outfit that felt more suitable for his current body, but caught himself before it actually left his hand. He stopped to dig around in the pocket, and relief broke over him when he found that little velvet box still there. 

He was probably always going to be scared of the future, of the day he’d have to leave Rose behind for one reason or another. And there was probably never going to be a perfect time to ask, anyways. But suddenly, the thought of not holding Rose as close to him as possible was just unbearable. He had almost lost her so many times already, and he already knew that it would destroy him to lose her someday. Withholding potential happiness now wasn’t going to change anything.

So he made his way back to Rose’s home, pulled her aside, all kinds of speeches and beautiful words jumbled up in his head so much that he couldn’t figure out how to say any of them. He silently shoved the box into her hands, and she opened it slowly, but as soon as she saw what was inside, she looked up at the Doctor hopefully. “You’re still my Doctor?”

He nodded. “Yes. The only thing that’s changed is that I’ve made myself a bit prettier for you, Rose, that’s it.” Then his voice became more serious, as he looked her in the eyes. “Everything I am is for you, Rose.”

She immediately reached out to wrap her arms around him, and they kissed, this time with neither of them in danger, and it did feel like the perfect moment. And even though Jackie made a few wry comments when they returned to the table, she had to agree that the ring was beautiful.

,,,

The Doctor was in a great mood as he strolled down the road in the late nineteenth century France to fetch some fresh crepes and coffee while Rose was still sleeping. Every few steps, he stopped to glance down at his hand, as if to assure himself that the ring was still there. Not that he thought it would magically disappear (considering that magic wasn’t even real), but this all felt so much like a dream that he was afraid to wake up and find out that none of it was real.

It was early enough that there were very few people out on the streets yet, so the Doctor found himself paying attention to the few people he did pass by. It was always interesting to see what different cultures looked like when they weren’t trying to kill him for one thing or another. 

Because he was paying attention, the Doctor froze mid-step when he saw a familiar face. But there should be no familiar faces here. Or at least not one that he’d last seen a couple thousand years ago on the other side of the galaxy. She was just doing something as mundane as setting out her empty milk bottles, but the Doctor couldn’t help feeling on edge. He didn’t know what was going on, and he hated not knowing what was going on. 

Before he could think better of it, he found himself walking right up to the young human. “Excuse me, but I-”

The human laughed. “Are you wearing your night clothes, sir? Has no one told you that it’s already morning?”

The Doctor glanced down at himself. He’d been in such a hurry to surprise Rose that he’d forgotten to change out of his pajamas. Drat. But wait- that wasn’t the point. The point was that the person standing in front of him was someone he’d clearly seen before, even if she didn’t seem to remember him. Maybe it was because of his new face that she didn’t recognize him? Or maybe the last time they’d met was still in the human’s future? 

She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know where you come from, but around here it is considered quite impolite to run around in your nightclothes, and then stare at people while saying nothing.”

“Ah, quite right, sorry. You just remind me of someone I’ve met before. Is there any chance you were in the Serigot quadrant nearly three thousand years ago?” 

“What?”

The Doctor sighed. “I didn’t think so. Sorry, I’ll just be on my way.”

The human stomped over to where the Doctor was standing to roughly grab his arm. “You are going nowhere, sir. I am bringing you to the police so that they can know there is a madman on the loose.”

“Is there? Perhaps you should give me a description of him so I know who to avoid.” Then he offered what he hoped was a charming smile.

She apparently did not feel particularly charmed by it. “Who are you?”

“I suppose it’s never too late for introductions. Welll, I say never, but it’s more-”

“Just tell me your name!” she snapped at him as she continued to pull him down the street. Even though he could easily pull himself free, the Doctor decided to kindly allow her to continue with her efforts. 

“I’m the Doctor.” He could feel the grip on his arm tighten minisculely, and a moment later she let go and took a step back, looking as though she were afraid of getting burned by him. “Aha! So you do know me!” He wasn’t sure why he felt so victorious to figure that out, but the feeling faded quickly when he saw how distraught the human looked.

She wrapped her arms around her middle, and suddenly looked so very young. “Of course I know you! You’re the one who-” she cut herself off, and closed her eyes tightly.

The Doctor took a cautious step forward, but stopped immediately when the human took a small step back. “The one who what?” he asked softly. 

“You’re the one who forgot me,” she mumbled, sounding entirely miserable.

The Doctor’s eyes widened as a connection met in his memories. It had been years ago at this point, but he remembered an old human with a similar volatile reaction to his name, who had declared that she hated him for forgetting her. 

Before he could get to the bottom of the mystery, there was the sound of pounding footsteps nearby. A young man holding two bags burst down the street, and then ducked down an alley between two houses. A moment later, an officer appeared as well. “Freeze!” 

The Doctor held his hands up when he saw the guns, but couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes. He didn’t look anything like the probable criminal that had just darted by. He started forward so the officer would be able to hear him better. “I didn’t-” And then it seemed as though everything happened in slow motion. He wasn’t sure what caused it, maybe he’d just been startled by the Doctor’s movement, but the officer fired his gun towards the Doctor. And then suddenly a body was slamming back against him, and it took him a moment to figure it out.

The stranger who clearly didn’t like him had just taken a bullet for him, and now she was hurt because of him. He did a brief patdown of his robe pockets, but he must have left his sonic screwdriver on the ship. So he did a pulse check, and it was immediately obvious that there was none. This human was dead. 

The Doctor gently lowered her to the ground, and then turned to look at the murderer, grateful that Time Lords didn’t easily cry. “You just killed an innocent girl.” He didn’t need to shout for his voice to come out menacingly. Technically he didn’t actually have any proof of the stranger’s innocence, but he could barely think about what he was saying as he just kept replaying the scene in his mind. Why would she die for the Doctor? 

The officer looked shaken, and quickly put his gun away before rushing over and dropping to his knees next to the corpse. “What have I done?” he moaned. Then he looked up at the Doctor. “I did not… I wasn’t…” 

The Doctor let out a heavy sigh, feeling the weight of yet another death on his hands. He lectured the officer, though he could barely remember what he said to the man, and then hurried back to the TARDIS. He needed to see Rose. She always made things better.

He felt guilty as he burst into their room and she jolted up, clearly startled. She rubbed at her eyes, and then looked up at the Doctor, her face immediately softening. “What’s wrong?”

He knelt on the bed so that he could look at Rose. “I think I just caused a paradox.” She raised one eyebrow, but didn’t say anything else, just waited for him to explain. “Do you remember what I told you about Hapxcom IV?”

Rose slowly nodded, clearly trying to figure out what was going on. “That was before we met, right? With that lady who died of old age, and said she hated you?”

The Doctor bowed his head forward, feeling more exhausted than his superior physiology gave him the right to. “Yes. she refused my help, and preferred to die in the street than to even let me scan her.”

Rose reached up to put a comforting hand on the Doctor’s arm. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said softly. “That was her choice.” The Doctor appreciated the sentiment, but also knew that in this case, Rose was wrong. If he hadn’t done something to earn such wrath from that human, then she would have accepted his help and potentially survived. After a long moment of silence, Rose cleared her throat to get the conversation going again. “What does this have to do with a paradox?”

“I think that I just saw the same person die today as a teenager.”

Rose scooted closer to the Doctor so that she could pull him into a tight hug, and didn’t back away to look at him for a few minutes. “What makes you think that they’re the same person?”

The Doctor shrugged. “Physically, the only connection I can see is that they are- were- both human, but the age difference is too big for any other details to match up much. But there’s something that both of them said, about me forgetting them. In the same voice. And even if that’s just a coincidence, there’s also the fact that I saw that teenager before. She was the one who helped fix up the TARDIS back when you and Jack were waiting at your mum’s.”

Rose hummed thoughtfully for a moment. “If she knew how to fix a space and time machine, then is it possible that it’s because she has one of her own? Like a Time Agent or something?”

“It’s possible,” he hedged. But she had seemed so young to be a Time Agent. “But even if that is the case, it doesn’t explain how she could die twice.” He knew that this was going to be a mystery that would bother him until he could figure it out.

,,,

The Doctor laughed as he pulled Rose down the red paved road. “This way to the best chips in the universe!” 

She laughed with delight, eager to follow him to her destination. Even when there was no danger around them, it still felt right to just keep running. It was a pleasant enough day, even when they were chased out of town by angry locals who found it disrespectful that Rose hadn’t been fond of their potato substitute chips. 

As they got closer to the TARDIS, though, the Doctor realized that the door was propped open just slightly. He knew that he always made sure it was locked when they headed out, and nobody could break those doors down. He motioned for Rose to stay back while he investigated, but she just rolled her eyes and followed him closer anyways.

The Doctor peered through the opening, and spotted someone from the back. They were… caressing the console? As far as he knew, he was the only one who did that. Well, whatever this person was up to, he wasn’t going to let them get away with it. They must have done something to the ship to stop her from setting off any alarms or calling for help.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, and then walked over to the intruder with light enough steps that they wouldn’t hear him coming. “Who are you?” he asked in a friendly voice, though there was steel underneath it. The intruder turned around, and the Doctor’s mouth dropped slightly. “You made my rings!”

The intruder narrowed her eyes, and crossed her arms over her chest. “What the hell are you talking about?” The confusion slowly shifted to a grim little smile. “So we’ve met before.”

The Doctor nodded. “Yes, when you-” he cut himself off as more connections built up in his memories. The human who’d fixed his ship and who had died for him, was most likely the same one that had died after refusing his help, and when he compared the younger face to the one in front of him, he could see the resemblance. Even though it made no sense, were they all… the same person? “You broke onto my ship. I think that I at least deserve some answers.” Out of the corner of his eye he could see Rose enter the TARDIS, and she made her way over to him to link her hands together.

The intruder sighed, and leaned back against the console, looking tired. “I don’t think I owe you anything after everything you’ve-” she were cut off when the TARDIS was knocked into hard enough to make everyone stagger to the side. 

The Doctor swore under his breath and then hurried over to the console. He needed to get them out of there before the locals could do any damage to his precious ship. He shot a hesitant look at the intruder, unsure of whether this qualified as kidnapping or arresting her, but took them all into the time vortex anyways. 

The stranger looked more annoyed than alarmed at the fact that she was far removed from her previous location. Though that must have already been the case, since there were no human colonies on the planet she’d just been on. The Doctor walked over to the stranger. “What’s your name?” Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t asked for her name before, not any of the other times they’d encountered one another. Probably because he always introduced himself and immediately initiated the human’s dislike of him. 

There was a long pause, where he wasn’t sure of whether or not she would answer, but then she huffed out a long breath, and her shoulders slumped down in defeat. “Baby.”

The Doctor frowned. “Excuse me?” Even if this person had died for him (?) she had no right to call him that.

Apparently his confusion was funny, because this time the stranger laughed, and the Doctor could hear a small snort from Rose as well. “That’s my name, Doctor. I’m Baby.”

The Doctor hated feeling awkward, since that simply wasn’t something Time Lords did, but right now he couldn’t help it. Rose squeezed his hand to give him comfort, and he gave her a quick smile before looking back at Baby. “We have met before… haven’t we?”

Baby shrugged, looking somewhat amused. “Anything is possible. I’ve never seen this face of yours, though.”

It seemed like he was actually getting answers, and the Doctor had to refrain from shouting out a long list of questions. He knew that time travel could lead to some strange, nonlinear happenings, but surely not all of their meetings could be in Baby’s future? Then again, most of those encounters had been his previous self, but even then, Baby had never seemed to recognize anything beyond his name. “You’re from my future, then?”

Whatever reaction he was expecting, it wasn’t for Baby to laugh, and then get a far off look in her eyes. “No. I’m afraid I’m from your past, Doctor.”

He gasped. “You said that you hated me for forgetting you!”

Baby tilted her head to one side. “Did I? Yeah, I can see myself saying that.”

“But you don’t remember saying that? Maybe to a different face of mine?”

Baby sighed, and tipped her head back so that the top was resting against the clear tubing running up the center of the console. “I live a complicated life, Doctor. If I don’t remember talking to you, then it’s because I haven’t.”

The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows. “But you just said-”

“I know,” she interrupted in a quiet voice. “I don’t really know how to explain it all. It would be so much easier if you could just remember.” Then she straightened up, and walked over to the Doctor with a determined look on her face. “If this isn’t enough to get you to remember, then I suppose there’s no hope of it at all.” She leaned forward, and whispered a single word into the Doctor’s ear, a single name. His name.


	2. The War Doctor

There was an entire war going on. It was what the Doctor existed to fight for. There had been too many deaths already, and if something wasn’t done soon, then it was quite possible that the entire universe would be torn to pieces. But despite knowing that, the Doctor still didn’t want to return to Gallifrey. Which made it quite lucky that he had a time machine, didn’t it? He could go anywhere he wanted, and when he returned the war would still be there. Hopefully. 

Perhaps he was just a coward trying to justify the fact that he was running away, but the Doctor didn’t care. He lovingly patted the console of the TARDIS. “Anywhere you want to go, girl,” he told her in his new, gruff voice. Each time he spoke, it only served as a reminder that everything about his newest body had been designed for war, and he didn’t want to think about that.

He let himself get swept away onto what should be his next great adventure. Once they landed, he stepped out of the TARDIS without checking the monitors, wanting to be surprised. He frowned when he found himself in what appeared to be someone’s basement. Or maybe just a cave with windows. Why would his ship choose to bring him here of all places?

Then he realized that there were others in the cave/basement, and he looked at them curiously. There appeared to be a couple of humans, one male, one female, dressed in dark robes, sitting on the outside of a circle that had been painted around the space the TARDIS had landed in. The female quickly got to her feet, and stared at the Doctor with wide eyes. “You really came!”

“I was expected?”

The man stood as well, and bowed deeply before looking at the Doctor. “Of course, my lord. We have been waiting for your arrival. We are ready to make a deal.”

The Doctor raised one eyebrow in bemusement, and waited for her to explain further. The woman held out a basket. “For the gift of wealth and power, we offer unto you the blood of our newborn. The child is only two weeks old, and we made sure not to give it a name.”

And then the Doctor felt sick. More death? More blood on his hands? Was it really so impossible to escape war no matter how much he ran from it? If Time Lords were able to vomit, he was sure that that was what he would do right in that moment. He didn’t want to look in the basket, but he felt a morbid need to do so, to look upon the face of yet another life that had been extinguished.

The baby was lying unnaturally still, and the Doctor couldn’t bear the idea of checking their timeline. He wanted to rant and rave at this hideous couple who would give the life of their own child for some cash. But then he noticed the slightest movement within the basket. He quickly snatched it out of the woman’s hands in order to get a better look- yes! The baby was still breathing! But why weren’t they moving at all? Human babies were known for being quite restless creatures.

Perhaps the question on his face was obvious, because the woman murmured, “We gave it sedatives so that it would not cause trouble, my lord. It has not stopped screaming since its birth.”

Maybe the baby sensed the evil intentions of their parents. The Doctor wanted to make the couple suffer for what they were willing to do, but more importantly at the moment, he needed to get this child somewhere safe, to a more loving home. One small good deed that he could do now, as if that would somehow made up for the terrible ones that he knew awaited him. “Yes, yes, this… sacrifice is sufficient,” he growled at the couple. Then he stormed back into the TARDIS and slammed the doors shut behind him.

He brought the TARDIS into the time vortex so that he could be far away from that sickening pair, and then brought the fragile little child into the medbay. He ran some scans, and found that the baby’s heart rate was alarmingly low, and he hooked her up to an IV to flush the sedatives out of her system as soon as possible. She was just a little girl, then. The Doctor couldn’t help it when his mind flashed to his granddaughter. He wasn’t sure if it had been quite long enough yet for the memories to stop being painful.

The Doctor didn’t mean to drift off to sleep while reading a book about babies that the TARDIS had provided him, but he must have, because he was suddenly jolted awake by loud screams. He jumped to his feet, not caring when the book fell onto the floor. He went over to the bed, which was far too large for an infant, and was relieved to see that the baby was clearly awake.

The IV had run out, so he carefully freed the infant from the tubing, and put a small bandage over the bleeding dot left behind. Then he picked the baby up, instinct telling him how to carry her, left over from when he’d first become a father too many years ago to count. As soon as he held the child in his arms, the screams petered off, leaving only messy tears dripping down.

“What do you want?” he demanded in the gentlest voice that this body was capable of creating. He tried to think of what a baby would need, a human baby. The door to the medbay suddenly opened, and the Doctor glanced towards the ceiling. “Do you know?” He got a vague feeling of confirmation from the TARDIS, and decided that that was good enough for him.

He allowed himself to be led through the ship until he got the kitchen, and then he felt like a complete idiot. Of course the baby would be hungry. Human children grew so quickly that they needed all the nutrients they could get. He put the baby down on the counter to find something suitable to feed her, but as soon as he did, she started wailing again. 

Starting to get a headache, the Doctor quickly picked her up, and once again the cries stopped. He looked down at the infant in disbelief. “What is wrong with you? I can’t feed you without putting you down, so unless you want to wait to eat until we get to wherever we’re going…” He thought that he’d made his point fairly well, but the infant had the audacity to completely ignore him, and start screaming again the moment he set her down. He contemplated just leaving her like that while he went to fetch food, but the miserable look on that tiny face made him feel too guilty.

He scooped her up again, though this time it took slightly longer for her to calm down. “Alright, here’s the deal… you,” he would have to make sure that the child’s new parents gave the child a good name. “I’m going to figure out how to make you something one-handed. But that means that you can’t squirm around, or else you’ll fall and break your head open.” He wasn’t sure if she understood him or not, but she did give him a bright smile that felt almost painful to his tired old hearts.

When the Doctor opened the fridge, he found bottles of formula, which he loudly thanked the TARDIS for providing. He tried to give them to the infant, but she took one sip before spitting it out, and then it occurred to him that newborn humans were primed to drink milk from their mothers, which would be warm, so he heated the bottle up. This time, the baby gulped it all down. She could certainly consume a lot, considering that she was such a tiny scrap of a person. 

Once he was done in the kitchen (leaving the dirty bottles in the sink for his future self to deal with) he headed back to the console room, gently rocking the baby without even thinking about it. Operating the TARDIS was really more of a two-handed operation. He carefully set the baby down on the jumpseat, hoping that a full stomach would be enough to sate her, but she proved her consistency by immediately starting to cry and shout.

The Doctor sighed as he picked her back up again. He definitely needed to find her a home sooner rather than later. He headed to the library to see if he had any other books about human babies, but when he got there, he found a harness resting on his favorite chair. He quickly figured out that it went on his chest like a backwards backpack, and that the baby could be buckled in. A clever way to leave his hands free while also preventing the splitting headache that was bound to be caused by all of the screaming.

He returned to the console room, careful to move slowly enough that it wouldn’t bother the infant, who seemed to be falling asleep, and then started setting in coordinates for the twenty-third century on Earth. It seemed as good a place as any to find a new home for the girl. 

The TARDIS made an effort to make a smoother landing than normal so as to not disturb the sleepy infant, and then the Doctor stepped outside. He was down the street from a nice young couple who’d always wanted children but had never been able to afford adoption or surrogacy. He stood outside the modest home, and then unclipped the baby from the harness so that he could look her in the eyes. “This is going to be your new home.” He would just set her down on the porch, ring the doorbell, and then duck behind the nearest corner. Easy, neat, and quick.

But as he leaned forward, the baby looked up at him with big, brown eyes, and a big grin. He knew that the grin would be gone the moment he let go of her, since this baby was apparently very dependent on contact. Would the couple inside figure that part out? Or would the baby only appreciate cooler hands, like those of a Time Lord? 

The Doctor felt guilty about the idea of making the kid cry by just ditching her here, and he heaved out a large sigh. “It’s better for both of us if you get settled here before you’re old enough to remember anything else.” She just kept staring up at him, laughing, as though she actually enjoyed the sight of him. Considering the reason for this body’s creation, he found that difficult to believe of anybody.

“Look… Baby,” he settled on calling her. It’s not like he could give her a name. That would only promote some kind of false emotional attachment, and also make it more difficult for her future parents to connect with her. “I’ll bring you on one trip, just one. Just so that you can know that there is a bigger universe out there than anything you’ll see in your lifetime. Consider it compensation for the fact that you got stuck with me in the first place.” Then he turned around and headed back onto the TARDIS, confident that he’d be able to show the kid some cool sights and then get her settled in her new home.

,,,

Somehow it hadn’t occurred to the Doctor that he might want to take it easy and go somewhere simple and safe for the baby’s first outing. To be fair, he did throw all of his other companions right in the deep end (whether he meant to or not). Though also to be fair, all of his other companions could communicate beyond screaming- though sometimes it didn’t seem that way with Susan.

Well, he had intended on this adventure being a mostly safe one. He couldn’t have possibly known that he was on a planet where no one other than the biological parents were allowed to raise their children. When he’d tried to question what would happen if a child was orphaned, he wasn’t given satisfactory answers, so he tried to push harder, just like he always did. Some random secretary had said he had an adorable child, and he’d quickly corrected her about the child not being his. 

So he found himself running back to the TARDIS, glad that he’d thought to bring the harness out, so he didn’t have to worry about dropping the baby. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” he panted out, though his voice didn’t come out sounding as accusing as he’d wanted it to. The idiot child was just clapping her hands together and laughing, as though she were strapped to an amusement park ride and not a man running for his life.

When he finally got back to the TARDIS, he sank down onto the jumpseat, and pulled the baby free. He ran the sonic over her quickly, to make sure that she didn’t have any head or neck injuries because of the pace the Doctor had been going at. For such a small thing, she were apparently quite hardy.

He settled her on his lap, and looked down at her sternly. “Alright Baby, that was it. Your one trip.” She grinned up at him. “Although… I suppose it wouldn’t really be fair for your one trip to be cut short like that.” She tilted her head and kept staring up at him, and the Doctor sighed. “Alright, fine. But just one more trip, and then I’m taking you home.” Not that she really had one at the moment, but that was a problem for the future.

,,,

“Just one more trip, Baby, and then I’m taking you home.”

,,,

“This is the last one, and then off you go.”

,,,

“I mean it this time; just one more trip.”

,,,

There were hundreds of thousands of amusement parks all over the universe that were known for being such fun times. And yet, for some reason, he found himself giving in to those big brown eyes, and going to a small playground on Earth. It’s not that he disliked Earth, but it’s where there was the highest chance of him running into other variations of himself, which was always quite awkward. He definitely did not understand most of his previous dressing choices.

He sat on a nearby bench, feeling somewhat unneeded at the moment, while Baby ran around on the playground, laughing and talking with the other children around her age. She was a very friendly child- to the point of jeopardy at times- but it was probably a good thing for her to be able to make friends easily. A healthy thing. 

As the Doctor sat around, he contemplated taking a quick nap on the bench, since he was quite bored, and hadn’t thought to bring a book or a toaster with him so that he’d have something to do. His partially closed eyes snapped open at the sight of a blur rushing past him, but he relaxed when he saw that it was not Baby. 

With his superior physiology, he couldn’t help overhearing as the child threw herself at an adult sitting on a different bench. “Papa!” He wasn’t sure why it gave him such a weird feeling in his gut to hear that term of address. Maybe it reminded him of his own son, even though he’d never been referred to as such by the boy. 

The Doctor shook his head, and then got up, letting out a slight groan at the aches in his body. He hadn’t intended to use it for very long, which is why he hadn’t cared that it was old and creaky to start with. But the past few years had certainly not been easy on this incarnation. Still though, he found that he preferred constantly running around to becoming the soldier he was meant to be. 

And he definitely preferred running to just sitting around and doing nothing. He made his way over to Baby, and cleared his throat. Baby looked up from the structurally sound sandcastle that she was helping another little girl build, and grinned at the sight of him. “Doctor!” She raised her arms up, and the Doctor rolled his eyes, but did pick her up. She was definitely getting too old to be carried around, though. Too heavy for it. She seemed unbothered by that, though. “Where are we going next?”

The Doctor frowned as he saw the excitement on her face. Baby always loved exploring new places, and learning everything there was to know about each place they went. “I was thinking we could go somewhere simple, like the pink beaches of Seraheim. But this is your last trip, understand?” he added sternly. Baby just grinned and nodded, eager to begin their next adventure.

,,,

“Doctor?” He was busy going over reports sent to him by Romana. He tried to convince himself that by sending in advice, he was still doing his part to aid in the war effort. He grunted to acknowledge that Baby had spoken, but didn’t look away from the reports. “What’s a hyper-bowl?”

“It’s an exaggeration. And it’s hi-pur-buh-lee.”

There was a moment of silence, and then, “Doctor? What’s an egg- eggza- exaggeration?”

He sighed, and finally looked up from his reports. “It’s when you make the truth sound bigger than it is. For instance, if I said that I love being bothered while I’m busy, that would be an exaggeration.” Then he gave Baby a pointed look. “This ship is plenty big enough for you to find some other way to entertain yourself.” Then he turned back to his reports, satisfied that the matter had been dealt with. 

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been busy when he suddenly heard a loud shriek, followed quickly by a loud thud, followed by muffled sobs. The Doctor’s eyes widened in alarm and he hurried to the source of the noise. 

Baby was sprawled out on the floor, one of her arms twisted in a way that was unnatural for humans, and there were tears all over her face. He glanced up, and quickly figured out what had happened. She must have been climbing around on the scaffold, but slipped and fell. He knelt down in front of her, but she just avoided meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry,” she sniffed. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

The Doctor immediately shook his head. “No, I wasn’t going to..” he trailed off when he realized that there was no point in trying to make a case for himself here. He just had so much to learn, perhaps as much as Baby did. Of course he never spent every waking moment with his previous companions, but none of them had been children (despite how they acted on occasion). He should have known better. The TARDIS might be a living thing, and she might not want harm to come to her passengers, but even she couldn’t catch a falling girl in time. “I’m the one who’s sorry,” he finally got out, as painful as it was for him to apologize. Then he scooped her up, careful not to jostle her arm, and carried her to the medbay. “You’re not a bother, I’m just… I’m just a grumpy old man,” he explained. He wasn’t sure if she really understood or not, but she did laugh when he ‘accidentally’ got a bandage stuck to his face, and he promised that once her arm was healed they could go wherever she wanted. 

,,,

“Doctor?”

“Hm?” He was only half paying attention to Baby, because he was currently in the middle of trying to repair a few things on the TARDIS- and no, it was not useless tinkering, not matter what Baby said. And it was mindless enough work to answer Baby’s millions of questions about the universe, so it wouldn’t take his full attention anyways.

“What’s the Time War?” 

The Doctor jerked upright, and immediately banged his head on the underside of the console. He swore under his breath, but then regretted it. Baby was already fluent in Gallifreyan (and not because the Doctor missed the sound of a conversation in his native language, but simply for the academic value of it), but he’d done his best to avoid teaching her swears and curses so that she couldn’t misuse her knowledge. 

But a few new words in her vocabulary was not the Doctor’s focus at the moment. After stopping to rub at his head, he crawled out and stood upright, looking down at the little girl. He wasn’t even sure exactly how old she was (eleven years, eight months, six days), but he knew that she was far too young to be speaking of such things. “Where did you hear that?”

She looked shocked by his reaction, and shrugged, pressing her toes down into the grating of the floor even though the Doctor was always telling her not to do that. “I dunno. Someone mentioned it on Nifter Eighteen when we were there.”

That had been months ago. “Why are you asking about it now?”

She shrugged again. “I tried looking it up to figure it out on my own, but most people don’t want to talk about it. I just,” she paused to peer up at the Doctor from beneath the tacky looking bangs she’d insisted on growing out. “The ones who mentioned it… they were saying that you…” Baby never usually dragged out her words so much. Clearly she was uncomfortable with what had been said. “They called you a coward,” she suddenly rushed out. “They said that you’re just running away from the war because you’re scared.” Then she bit her lip and looked away, like she was ashamed of herself for repeating what she’d heard.

The Doctor let out a tired sigh, and reached up to wipe at his grease-smudged face. “They’re right, you know. I am a coward.”

Baby immediately shook her head. “No you’re not! You’re the bravest person in the universe!” She said it with such passion, with the innocence of a child who didn’t truly understand what war meant. Still, the Doctor couldn’t help feeling touched by the faith this child had in him, despite the fact that he had no relation to her and seemed to constantly endanger her without meaning to. “Besides, you can’t fight in a war, because you’re taking care of me.”

And what did it say about the Doctor that it had never even occurred to him to use that as an excuse?

,,,

“I’m so sorry,” Baby whispered, knowing that the Doctor would be able to hear her despite the distance between them. He watched helplessly as she was held captive by armed guards, hoping to use her against him. Well, it was a good thing that he didn’t care about her enough to risk an entire civil war breaking out across the country of Ratheyabra, which they had just been visiting. How could he possibly care about her? She was just an ordinary, fragile little human. He’d never even given her a name. How could anyone care about someone without a name?

The Ratheyabran who was the queen in the process of being overthrown gave the Doctor a curious look as she held a gun up against Baby’s head. “If you side with us, then the rebels will back down. If you don’t, then you will witness the death of your child.”

“She’s not my child,” the Doctor felt like pointing out.

The queen rolled all seven of her eyes simultaneously. “Travel companion, then. Or pet, maybe. I don’t care who she is. All that matters is what I am telling you: submit and join me in this fight to end the war before it can begin, or this child will be dead before you.”

The Doctor frowned. “I’ve heard stories of your reign over this country. You have not listened to a single complaint about you, and have refused to change your ways. You don’t care about your people, only about your power.”

The queen scoffed. “I’ve heard of you as well, Time Lord. I hear that you are a coward. Surely you have not run from one war out there only to face another here?”

In the end, wasn’t that the truth about him? That he was a coward? He’d been cowardly to accept a regeneration from the Karn, when he should have just died. He’d been cowardly to run from Gallifrey in its time of need. He was a coward through and through, there was no disputing that. 

And yet… He looked closely at Baby. There were tear tracks on her face, but no sign of fear. She was staring ahead with the face of a warrior, with the look of someone who could be brave because they had complete faith that they would be saved. The Doctor had been a coward to never leave her behind, despite how often he said that he would. He’d been too afraid of being lonely. Or maybe he’d just been too afraid of losing Baby.

It was true that he was a coward, through and through, and yet because of his cowardice and running he’d managed to help shape a child into someone so brave, and intelligent, and full of so much joy and excitement. Someone who believed in him to the point of foolishness, and was stupidly human, and who gave the Doctor hope for the future, in a way that he never thought he’d find. If he’d helped at all in making such a brilliant person, then doesn't that mean he had to have done at least something right? 

Baby believed the Doctor to be a hero. Who was he to prove her wrong? So he came up with a clever plan, just like he always did. Baby almost ruined it all when she came up with an escape plan of her own, but in the end he found himself helping the rebels destroy the queen’s rule without the need for a war, and then waited anxiously as Baby was brought back from the brink of death that her injuries had brought her to.

They returned home- to the TARDIS, and the Doctor lectured her for just a moment about how stupid she’d been, but then told her that she’d also been so brave and smart. Baby grinned, and pulled the Doctor into a hug, which he returned if only to avoid making things awkward. Long after Baby was in bed, the Doctor was awake, thinking. Had there always been a solution besides war? Perhaps he’d just been running for so long that he’d forgotten how to just stop and figure it out. 

,,,

"You know, it's entirely possible that someday you might encounter a version of me that's never met you before. If that should ever happen, then there's one guaranteed way to make sure that I'll know to trust you." He hesitated for just a moment, and then shared his name, the one he hadn't chosen for himself, because he trusted her completely with it, while also hoping that she would never need to invoke it.

,,,

The Doctor was well aware of just how intelligent Baby was. It only made sense, given that she’d learned from the best. So he knew that she’d find it odd when they went on a whole string of completely safe, completely fun trips. And stranger still that he didn’t remind her that each one would be her last. And yet he took her anyways, because it was the only thing he could think of to do. The only way he could think of to say goodbye.

After visiting their fourth pleasure planet in a row, Baby barged into the Doctor’s room on the TARDIS without even knocking first. She put her hands on her hips, and gave him a fierce look. “What’s going on? And don’t even try to act like there’s nothing, because I know you too well for that.”

The Doctor sighed, and knew that he couldn’t play pretend for any longer. He stood up, and motioned for Baby to follow him to the library so that they could settle down in the comfortable chairs in there. “I’ve been summoned back to Gallifrey by the council. It’s not the kind of thing that I can ignore. Not now.”

“Is this about the Time War?” Baby asked in a hushed voice, like she was afraid of even saying the words out loud. The Doctor had never explained to her what the war was, but she was old enough and clever enough to have at least figured out that it was not something to be taken lightly. ‘The war to end all wars’ some had called it, since the end of the universe would also mean the end of all wars.

The Doctor nodded once, and then settled back in his seat. “Yes.”

Baby shrugged, and he could see that she was trying to hide her fear. “Alright. So we’ll go to Gallifrey and we’ll help end the war. We’ve done it in a million other places, so why not in your home?”

The Doctor couldn’t help staring at her with wide eyes. “Are you a complete idiot? This is not a war that you have any place in! Even if humans were allowed on Gallifrey- which they most certainly are not!- I wouldn’t bring you right into the middle of an active war zone! You’re a human! You should be with other humans, somewhere far away from this fight!” He knew that he was breathing heavily as he tried to contain his anger, because it wasn’t really directed at Baby. 

Baby gave him a long, searching look, and then crossed her arms over her chest, wearing a stubborn look on her face that the Doctor had long ago accepted as meaning that it would be impossible to change her mind. But this time, he couldn’t even afford to let her make her case and argue with him about it. He was too afraid that she would succeed. He really was a coward, wasn’t he?

“You’re only human, Baby,” the Doctor reminded her, in that tired voice that so often accompanied this body. “And you’re only a child. I should have sent you home a long time ago. Years ago. I always told you I would, but then I never did, and for that, I’m sorry.” He thought that Baby might be pleased; she’d once complained about the fact that he never apologized for anything or admitted when he’d done something wrong.

The look on Baby’s face made it seem as though he’d just offended worse than he ever had before in her life, and the Doctor hated to be the cause of that look, even as he didn’t understand what he’d said wrong. “How could a daft idiot like you possibly have survived so long?” she murmured. The Doctor frowned, and Baby sighed as she leaned back in her seat. “You never needed to send me home because this is my home. Here, on the TARDIS, with you. Going on all sorts of adventures and learning about everything. You raised me. How could I ever think of anyone else as my family? As my home?”

“I didn’t even give you a name,” the Doctor tried to argue weakly. 

Baby gave him an almost sympathetic smile, as though she pitied him for being such a foolish old man. “Yeah, but you gave me all the important stuff.” And what argument was left to go up against something like that?

,,,

In the end, it came down to deceit. The Doctor said that they were going on their next adventure. And Baby, so full of trust in him, had no reason to suspect that he was lying. Part of him felt guilty for it, but he had a war to attend to, and knew that war was no place for Baby.

They wandered around and explored for the rest of the day, and the Doctor fought to act as normal as possible, though he wasn’t even entirely sure he remembered what normal was. He found that he never wanted the day to end, but once Baby was stumbling, practically falling asleep on her feet, the Doctor knew that it was time to go. 

He paid for two rooms in a nice hotel nearby for them to spend the night, needing the separate rooms to avoid waking up Baby when he left. The Doctor had already made a call to an old friend to make sure that there would be someone there for Baby in the morning. Not that the Doctor thought she couldn’t take care of herself, but she was still just a kid (sixteen years, two months, eighteen days) and shouldn’t have to be on her own.

They said their ‘good nights’, and then the Doctor didn’t wait long before hurrying back to the TARDIS. More guilt washed over him as he locked the doors behind him, hoping that keeping Baby alive and safe would be worth the betrayal and anger she would feel towards him. 

It wasn’t until he was landing on Gallifrey that he realized how hungry he was, and headed to the kitchen. It felt like he was preparing for his last meal. And he was completely surprised to see Baby standing by the counter, sipping from her favorite mug. She just gave the Doctor an almost smug look. “You’re already here. If you leave now, the council would probably be pretty mad at you, right?”

The Doctor curled his hands into fists. “You fool! Why are you so eager to throw your life away in a battle that is not yours?”

Baby tilted her head up, and stared at him with complete confidence. “When are you going to learn, Doctor? I don’t care about this stupid war. I just care about sticking with you. You’re all I have in this entire universe. So any battle of yours becomes mine too. And I’m not just staying on the ship, so don’t even bother trying to tell me to.”

The Doctor closed his eyes, and tried to look back over his personal timeline to see where he might have done something differently to avoid this outcome. The only thing he could think of was if he had never taken Baby at all, and he wasn’t sure whether that was better or worse than the idea of losing her in this war because of her own stubbornness. He knew that if he told her to stay, she wouldn’t bother to listen, so there was no point in that. “Fine. But you will not move out of my sight for even a moment-”

“I can help, Doctor, if you just let me. You know that I can actually help. Send me somewhere useful. Please.”

Anywhere he could send her on Gallifrey was dangerous. Romana had already filled the Doctor in on her plan. It had taken some time for her to actually rob the vault, but she’d succeeded, and now the Doctor just needed to obtain the weapon she’d found. He tried to think of a task for Baby that would be quick, but also useful. “The TARDIS nursery is near here. Even your inferior non-telepathic mind should be able to find it. If you can figure out a way to destroy it, then that’s what I need you to do for me.”

Instead of barraging him with questions like he would have expected, Baby just nodded solemnly. “I understand.”

The Doctor suddenly reached out to grab both of Baby’s shoulders, and gave her (what he hoped wasn’t) a worried look. “You must swear to me that you will be back in the TARDIS in two hours. Regardless of whether you’ve finished your task or not.” 

Baby nodded again. “I promise.” Then she hurried off, already instinctively going the right way. The Doctor watched until she was out of sight, and then he hurried to find his friend. She slipped him the Moment, and promised to do everything in her power to prevent any of the others from being able to follow him. 

Before he could ask what that meant, there was a nearby explosion that went off with enough force to shake the entire council building. And then the faint familial bond that the Doctor had never intended to create was suddenly torn away, and he looked at Romana with a wild desperation in his eyes. “What have you done?”

“I had to destroy all of the TARDIS’. Otherwise you could be tailed. Now get out of here and do what needs to be done!”

The Doctor couldn’t recall how he made it back to the TARDIS. All he could think about was Baby’s smile, and her eagerness to learn, and her genuine excitement with each new adventure, and her constant questions about everything, and her bravery, and… and he’d killed her, as surely as if he’d shot her down himself. 

,,,

As the Doctor sat in an empty, dusty little shack, staring forlornly at a buttonless device as a blonde girl danced around behind him, he knew exactly what he needed to do. The war had already taken far too much, and now it had taken Baby too.


	3. Chapter 3

The Doctor stared at Baby in shock. “How could you possibly know that?” He gulped as a thought occurred to him, and his eyes flicked down meaningfully to the rings on Rose’s finger. “Were we…?”

Baby immediately wrinkled her nose and made a loud gagging noise. “That has to be the most horrific thing I’ve ever heard! Please never, ever, _ever_ suggest anything like that ever again!”

The Doctor huffed, feeling strangely embarrassed for not yet understanding what was going on. “Then who are you? Can’t you tell me anything about yourself?”

She sighed like a woman who had the weight of the world on her shoulders. “Like I said, it’s complicated. But I guess… I was one of your companions, flying around in the TARDIS, taking in all of the science and history lessons that you loved giving out. I think that I traveled with you longer than any other companion, at least at the time.” Her gaze fell to the wedding rings as well before going back up to meet the Doctor’s eyes. “I don’t really know much about now.”

“How long did you travel together?” Rose asked suddenly, and the Doctor looked at her, wondering if she was thinking about Sarah Jane, and all the other companions who he had left behind over the years. He couldn’t tell from their bond, and didn’t think that now was a good time to go prodding around. 

Baby shrugged one shoulder. “Around sixteen years, I think.”

The Doctor quickly turned back to her, eyes wide with disbelief. He couldn’t imagine ever traveling with one person for so long. Even Rose, who he loved with both his hearts and had promised forever had only been with him for a couple of years. Not to mention that it seemed quite strange to just forget about sixteen years worth of memories, with no sign that they were missing. Though it did explain why the TARDIS seemed to trust Baby so easily. “Why did you leave?” the Doctor managed to ask.

Baby gave him a hard look. “You’re just as stupid as you’ve always been. Why do you always assume that everyone is going to leave you when you’re the one who’s always running away from them?” Then she reached up to tug at her hair, clearly looking frustrated. “Look, I’m not here to answer all the questions of the universe, or whatever. I just saw the TARDIS and felt nostalgic, so I came in when she opened the doors for me. So just land wherever is closest, and I’ll take my leave.”

The Doctor shook his head before he could even think about it. “But you can’t just leave. I still have so many questions. Like about the rings- did I teach you Gallifreyan?” It was a difficult concept to accept, since he’d never even offered to teach Rose the dead language (not that it would have mattered anyways, since she was useless at learning new languages).

“The rings?” Baby looked confused for a moment before continuing. “Oh, right you did say something about me making them. Yes, you taught me. I’m fluent in writing and speaking it. But I didn’t make your rings. Or maybe I did. I suppose it depends on your definitions of human consciousness and individuality.”

“What does that even mean?” the Doctor demanded. He knew that pushing for answers wasn’t going to help, not up against this particular person, but still felt obligated to ask. And he also held out hope that maybe she would suddenly become helpful, though he didn’t hold out too much hope for that.

Baby sighed. “Most of what you want to know is already in your own head. It’s not my fault that you Time Lords think that it’s a good idea to ever box away your memories. Or at least, I’m assuming that’s what happened. It’s not like you ever would have stopped to tell me about it.”

The Doctor frowned. “‘You Time Lords’?” he repeated slowly. “You say that as if it’s a characteristic of multiple Time Lords.”

“Are you saying that you’re the only one who locks up his memories, then? I wouldn’t be that surprised. You are the king of unhealthily repressing anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

The Doctor shifted on his feet and started to make a sound of protest, but Rose squeezed his hand, and whispered, “She’s not wrong, you know.”

The Doctor turned to his wife. “You’re ganging up on me with a complete stranger?”

Rose shrugged, a smile playing at her lips. “Maybe.”

Then they both looked back at Baby, who didn’t seem to care about the married couple taking a brief aside. “Like I said, I would like to get dropped off wherever is most convenient for you.” She hesitated for just a moment before adding, “Hey, if you ever get around to remembering someday, I’m sure you’ll see me again.” Though she didn’t sound very hopeful when she said that. She sounded like someone who already knew that they would not get what they wanted. 

Even if she had technically broken into the TARDIS (ignoring the fact that the traitor had just let Baby right in), the Doctor couldn’t justify holding her prisoner, so he reluctantly agreed to drop her off as soon as they landed. He couldn’t stop thinking about everything she’d said, though. For each answer she’d given, it felt like the Doctor only had more questions. But if there was one thing the Doctor was good at, it was finding answers to even the trickiest of questions.

,,,

“You do realize that I just saved your entire city, right?”

Baby, looking to be in her late twenties, just shrugged. “Was that supposed to impress me?”

“Would it impress you if I remembered who you are?” The Doctor immediately felt guilty when he saw how much hope appeared in Baby’s eyes. But he couldn’t even pretend to know her, since all he really knew was her name and that they’d traveled together. It would be all too obvious that he hadn’t actually remembered. “Well, if that would impress you, then I’ll have to find you once I do.”

The hope faded from Baby’s eyes, and was replaced with a steely look as she crossed her arms over her chest. “You are a menace, Doctor. And not in some fun, playful mischief kind of way. I mean in the way that involves destroying things and hurting people everywhere you go. That’s all you’re really capable of, isn’t it?”

,,,

Even though he trusted in his ability to remember, the Doctor chose to keep records of each encounter he had with Baby. He made sure to include every detail he could think of. After meeting her for about the thirtieth time (that he knew of, anyways), the Doctor realized that he had never encountered her when she was younger than sixteen. And she’d traveled with him for sixteen years. There was a connection there waiting to be made, but the Doctor hadn’t been able to figure it out just yet.

,,,

Rose plopped down on the Doctor’s lap like she belonged there, and one arm automatically wrapped around her waist to keep her in place. He could tell that something was on her mind, but he also knew that she wasn’t going to talk until the moment she was ready, so he continued on with the book he’d been reading, and gave her plenty of time to find the right words. After a few minutes, he started reading out loud to her, since he knew that she always enjoyed that.

He’d nearly gotten to the end of the book when Rose finally cleared her throat and looked ready to talk. She gently rested her arms on the Doctor’s shoulders, clasping her hands together at the back of his neck. “Doctor…” she bit her lip, and then found resolve to continue. “Please don’t think for even a moment that this in any way changes anything between us, okay? I was just wondering if it’s possible for you and I… can we have children?” The Doctor’s back stiffened, but Rose refused to let go of him. She leaned forward to rest her forehead against his. “I promise that your answer doesn’t change anything about how much I love you, Doctor. How much I love being with you.”

The Doctor relaxed slightly, but he couldn’t help feeling worried. Was he keeping Rose away from a life in the slow path? What if some day she decided that she actually did want children? “No,” he whispered. “We can’t.”

Rose kissed him until she was breathless, and then continued to sit exactly where she was. “I was just wondering. I promised you forever, Doctor, and nothing’s going to change that.”

The Doctor’s grip on her waist tightened a bit, and he was glad to continue sitting there together. He could feel through their bond that Rose was being honest, but he also knew that she might change her mind in the future. Well, he would just have to make sure she knew exactly what she’d be missing out on, then. He stood abruptly, easily carrying her in his arms, and she laughed in that way that made the Doctor swear his hearts were both about to stop beating. No matter what else happened, he knew that Rose Tyler was it for him. As he carried her, the Doctor leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “Just because we can’t actually procreate doesn’t mean that we can’t keep putting in our best effort to try.” And he knew that she’d laugh in response to the wry smirk on his face. 

,,,

Somehow the Doctor had fallen into the bad habit of believing that patterns could be trusted. Despite Baby being human, he’d never seen her on Earth before, and had stupidly assumed that it meant she’d never be there, so he found himself feeling extra surprised to encounter her. And so close to the Powell Estate, too. He told Rose that she shouldn’t miss her visit with her mother, and that he was capable of investigating on his own. 

“Hey!” He started jogging over to Baby. He immediately knew that this wasn’t like the other times, because it was quite obvious that she recognized him on sight, which had never happened before. He paused in front of her, surprised that she hadn’t turned and fled in the other direction, considering her feelings about him. “You recognize me this time?”

Baby crossed her arms over her chest. “The TARDIS isn’t exactly subtle to anyone who knows of it. And I’ve seen a picture of this current face of yours.”

Now the Doctor was really confused. Hadn’t he asked Mickey to erase all data about him on Earth? Then again, Mickey wouldn’t have known about any trouble involving the Doctor’s current face back then. “Scoured the internet to find me?” 

Baby scoffed, as if that was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “No. I sent a photo to myself as a warning. If I’d known you’d be around here right at this moment, I wouldn’t have come anywhere close.”

The Doctor frowned. “You sent a photo to yourself? From your past, or your future?”

A small smile appeared on Baby’s face, and the Doctor was suddenly struck by how familiar the expression looked, even if he didn’t have any specific memories to accompany it. “Neither. Or both, I suppose. Depends on how you look at it.” Her smile grew wider at the Doctor’s obvious confusion. “Doesn’t it just kill you to not know what’s going on?” 

Normally the Doctor would bluster his way out of the situation, with his dignity intact, but he was starting to get desperate for answers. This mystery didn’t feel like a fun thing to solve, it felt like something crucial to him, even though he had no idea why. “Yes,” he confessed. “It does. So can’t you please just tell me something honest? Even a small hint?”

Baby looked up and down the street, and the Doctor followed her gaze before looking at her questioningly. “All of those ordinary people. Living in the 21st century, and they have no idea just how big the universe is. But I know. Some strange twist of fate, and I was given the privilege of a tour of the universe by the Doctor himself.”

“A sixteen year tour,” the Doctor added, and was pleased to see the surprise on her face. “You told me that.”

She hesitated for a moment before moving on. “One of the many lessons you taught me was that you should never go back on your own personal timeline. It’s dangerous enough for anyone, but even more so for anyone who can’t see the timelines. Pretty much everyone other than Time Lords. I’ve never gone back on my own timeline. And as far as I know, you’ve never crossed my timeline more than once either.”

The Doctor stared at her, willing his big brain to figure out what she was talking about. “That’s impossible,” he told her, as if she somehow didn’t already know. “I’ve met you for the first time so many times that I am clearly not meeting you along the linear path of your life.”

“I’ve never met you with that face on, Doctor,” Baby told him in a remarkably patient voice. 

“Please just tell me what you mean.” He hated the way it sounded like he was begging, but he had to know what was going on. 

Baby stared at him for several long seconds, and then her shoulders slumped down. “I exist simultaneously,” she started slowly. For once, the Doctor found it easy to avoid rambling, because he was so eager to learn what was going on. “I exist anywhere and anywhen, but it’s not me and it is me. I suspect that there’s millions, if not billions, of me out there. And they’re all me, all with the exact same chemical makeup and body and memories, at least for the first sixteen years. I know because I felt it, and because I got into contact with myself. With a few of them, actually. Across the universe, I doubt I’d ever find anyone who could understand me better. And there’s no risk of causing paradoxes or time loops or anything like that, because they aren’t the past or future versions of me. They’re all me, just each started out somewhere different.”

The Doctor generally considered himself to be the smartest man in any given room that he was in, but even he was having trouble wrapping his mind around the concept. He could understand millions of copies of a person all found along their own timeline, or millions or identical siblings, or even clones, but how could they all be the exact same person? “How is that possible?” 

Instead of answering him, Baby just laughed. “Doctor, someday if you ever remember your past, all of it, then you can come find me, which shouldn’t be difficult at all, considering. And when you tell me the rest of your story, that’s when I’ll tell you the rest of mine.” Then she turned and walked away, and the Doctor knew that even if he chased after her he wouldn’t get any more answers.

,,,

When the Doctor finally remembered everything from the war that he’d had to forget, he found himself reeling from it all. He was ready to leave this crazy museum and never return. And he also wanted to see his wife, to ask her if she knew that she had been with him on the hardest day of his life.

He paused as he turned away from the paintings, though, when he realized that there was someone standing in the entrance to the room. They stepped further in so that he could see them clearly, and his eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

Baby gave him a long look. “What are you?”

“I’m the Doctor,” he said, as if that was the only answer ever needed.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh.” He wondered if she would have recognized him with his previous face.

They both just stood there awkwardly for a minute before the Doctor cleared his throat. “You told me that when I remember my past I should find you.”

Baby raised one eyebrow. “Did I?”

“Well I’ve remembered, everything about the war, but I still don’t have a single memory of you, from when we supposedly traveled together. I would notice if there were an entire sixteen years of memories locked away.” When she didn’t respond, he let out a groan of frustration. “Why are you even here? You can’t tell me that it’s just a coincidence. I’ve lived far too long to believe in those.”

Baby shrugged. “You’re right, I did come here looking for you. I was stupid enough to hope that you’d actually remember me. But I was right all along, wasn’t I? You wanted to forget me, and it had nothing to do with the war.” She paused for a moment, still not moving out of the way. “Why don’t we make a deal? You answer one question of mine, and I’ll answer one of yours.”

The Doctor really wanted to get home to the TARDIS and to Rose, but he also wanted to understand this. “Fine. I’ll even let you go first,” he offered generously.

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it probably wasn’t, “How did the last Time War end?” 

The Doctor glanced at the painting on the wall before looking back at the woman in front of him. He wondered which answer she wanted to hear. “I ended it. Stopped the Time Lords and the Daleks from tearing apart the entire universe.”

When there was no immediate response, the Doctor looked closer and realized that Baby was silently crying. It was easy with Rose because of their bond, but when anyone else got too emotional, the Doctor had no idea how he was supposed to deal with it. “So I guess in the end you really weren’t a coward,” she finally said in a choked voice. 

“I guess you don’t know me as well as you thought, then, because I’ve always been a coward.”

Baby slowly walked closer to him, though she stopped a couple feet away. She reached up to rub at her eyes before looking up at him. “I can’t believe that I once said that you’re the bravest person in the universe.”

“Yeah, well…” the Doctor trailed off as Baby’s words niggled something in his mind. He closed his eyes, not caring about how rude it was to check out in the middle of a conversation, and went looking for where his memories were stored. It was like a warehouse full of boxes on shelves. Some of them were locked, the ones that could potentially cause paradoxes, and the ones that were too painful to look at.

He went to the shelf of painful memories. There, next to the just newly opened memories from the war, he saw a slightly smaller box. He hesitated for a moment, unsure of the danger in looking, when he heard the faint echo of a child’s voice coming from the box. _“No you’re not! You’re the bravest person in the universe! Besides, you can’t fight in a war, because you’re taking care of me.”_

The Doctor grabbed the box and opened it, and was suddenly flooded with all of the memories that he’d shoved away. He had not been able to remove just Baby from those sixteen years because she was too fully entwined with all of those memories, so he had simply hidden away everything from all of those years, and put a little perception filter on in his own mind to keep himself from peaking. 

It felt like years passed before the Doctor’s eyes snapped open, and he stumbled forward with a startled gasp. Without waiting to ask for permission, the Doctor pulled the woman into a tight hug. “Baby! I thought that you were dead!” Now he could understand why she hated him so much. He had sent her to her death, and then had never gone back for her. But… “How are you still alive? How could you have escaped that explosion?”

Baby’s mouth opened and closed a few times, and she started crying again. “You remember me?”

He nodded. “Yes, I’m so sorry.” She finally wrapped her arms around him in return, and they both stood there like that for a while. 

They eventually broke apart, but the Doctor was afraid to take his eyes off the woman for even a second, in case she disappeared. “Doctor-”

He held out his hand. “Come on, let’s go home.”

,,,

Rose had felt the Doctor’s emotions through their bond, but had no idea what caused them, so he sat her down to explain. Since he still didn’t understand what Baby meant about existing simultaneously, he stuck with just explaining his history with Baby. Then he closed his eyes and looked away, waiting for Rose to get angry with him for abandoning Baby.

But just like always, Rose surprised him. She pulled him into a hug, and gently pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “I’m so sorry for what both of you have been through. You should go talk to her, Doctor. I’ll give you two some privacy.”

The Doctor followed the TARDIS’ directions, and instead of going to one of the common areas, he was led to a bedroom. The door was open, and he knocked on the doorframe before stepping inside. Baby was sitting on the edge of the bed, flipping through the pages of what looked to be a photo album. She looked up at the Doctor with a small smile. “It’s exactly how I remember it. It’s a relief to see somewhere familiar when the rest of this ship has changed so much since I last saw it.” She motioned for the Doctor to sit next to her, and then slid the album over so that it was resting partially on both of their legs. “I don’t think I ever told you I was collecting memories like this.”

They spent a few minutes flipping through the pictures together, and then the Doctor gently closed the book and set it aside. He turned to face Baby fully, and then pulled out his sonic screwdriver to fidget with on his lap while they spoke. “You said that when I finished telling you my story, you’d tell me yours.”

“I suppose so.”

So the Doctor told her about everything that had happened since the TARDIS nursery had been blown up. He told her about using the Moment to end the war, and about being on his own, and about how Rose saved him in so many ways, and about his different companions and adventures, and Bad Wolf, and getting married, and losing Rose to a parallel universe until she’d cleverly found her way back to him, and his different faces, and his guilt about the war, and everything else that he could think of. By the time he was done he felt exhausted, but he also felt strangely lighter. 

Then he looked at Baby expectantly, and she sighed, flopping back so that she was lying across the bed, feet still touching the floor. “That explosion didn’t kill me, but at the time I remember wishing that it had. I had already been doing my best to sabotage the TARDIS’, and the explosion on top of that just made everything worse. I think it was some kind of defense mechanism, but pretty much every TARDIS there cracked open and I was… I was submerged completely in the time vortex from all of them, and it was…” she trailed off, and squeezed her eyes shut. “No one’s meant to contain that much power, especially not a human. It destroyed me. I was torn apart, piece by piece, and I could feel every single moment of it.

“And then my cells were scattered across time and space, and each of those little clumps of individual cells was forced to grow into an entire person again within seconds. I could feel the pain of millions of myself being created even as I felt the pain of being ripped to shreds. I think that it was only a few seconds for the whole process but it felt like an eternity of nothing but fire and blood.

“And then I woke up here, on Earth, and I waited for you to come find me, but you never did. I had to figure out how to make a new life for myself and survive on my own. Eventually I figured out that even though every test said that I am nothing more than human, I had gained a unique energy signature. I used that to find some of the others of me that were alive at the same time. I needed someone to talk to, or I might have gone crazy.” She finally opened her eyes again, and stared up at the Doctor. “I guess this is as good an opportunity as any for you to say that I should have just listened to you in the first place.”

The Doctor quickly shook his head. “No, I wasn’t going to say that. It’s just- it was my responsibility to take care of you and protect you and I failed.” He tilted his head to the side. “I wonder what it means that I know two humans who have looked into the heart of a TARDIS and survived.” 

Baby snorted as she sat back up. “I’m not sure if I ‘survived’ or not. It really depends on your definition of what makes a person who they are.” She slowly got to her feet, and stretched her arms up over her head. “Well, I’m really glad that you did finally remember. I’ll have to make sure to let the other me’s know, so that at least a few of them will be less openly hostile towards you.”

The Doctor stood abruptly, feeling his hearts beating quicker than normal. “You’re leaving?” He tried to keep his voice neutral, but from the look on Baby’s face, he was pretty sure that he failed.

She gave him a small smile. “I have a life, Doctor. As difficult as it was to settle down, it’s been over ten years since I got stuck here. And some of the other me’s I’ve talked to have had decades. And anyways, you don’t need me. You’ve got a wife and friends and it’s been hundreds of years for you since the war. I have no doubt that I’ll see you around, though. Even if it’s not me.” Then she left before the Doctor could even begin to explain why she shouldn’t go. 

,,,

The Doctor was trying to figure out a polite way to tell these people that he did not want to be crowned king by them, when someone came running towards him, flinging themselves at him. It took him a moment to realize who it was, and then he relaxed into the hug. When Baby pulled away, she had a grin on her face. “What took you so long, Doctor?”

He led her back to the TARDIS after shaking off the locals. Rose was already waiting there, clearly having discovered a shortcut back. All three of them settled down in the library with some tea. “How long has it been for you?” 

“A couple of months,” she answered easily, before taking a sip. “I’ve already heard all about the situation from my other selves. I know that it’s been a lot longer than that for you?”

“And you’re not angry?” he asked cautiously. 

Baby shook her head. “Nah. Maybe if I was one of the ones who met you when you still couldn’t remember, or one who grew up and lived and entire life without you. But as it is, it feels more like I was stuck on a really long vacation or something.” 

“Are you still in any pain?” Rose asked with obvious concern in her voice. The Doctor had already explained to her everything that Baby had told him. 

Baby shook her head again. “No. Not anymore. The first couple of weeks were tough, and I barely even moved because it felt like my whole body was on fire. But I’m fine now.”

Then they all chatted about inane topics for a little while, until Rose got up to refill the tea. Then the Doctor cleared his throat and gave Baby a serious look. “I’ve never looked at your timeline before, you know.” He never wanted to see his companions’ timelines anyways, partially because the lines of time travelers could look quite complicated, and partially because he didn’t want to know when they would leave him. But he especially had not wanted to look Baby’s, since he’d been living in denial about her for most of the time they traveled together. “I was wondering if it would be okay with you if I looked now?”

She scooted forward in her seat. “Sure. I’ve actually been curious about that. I wonder if my timeline starts when I woke up on this planet, or when I was born. And I’ve got other questions too, of course.”

The Doctor focused on Baby, and his eyes widened at what he saw. Her timeline did start with her birth, and then looped around all over the place for the majority of her life spent with the Doctor. Then when she was sixteen, her timeline split off. One branch was easiest to read, which belonged to the girl sitting in front of him. But there were billions of others, faded and trickier to look at, that stretched and twisted and backtracked and went all over the place, to the point where it looked more like one giant blob that covered up everything rather than a single person’s timeline. 

He quickly looked away, feeling nauseated. It was like the exact opposite of his problem with Jack, who was a fixed point. The Doctor had always assumed that the opposite of a fixed point was simply a point that wasn’t fixed, but he’d been wrong. Whatever Baby was, she was the opposite of a fixed point. It was like she’d once told him, that she existed simultaneously nearly everywhere and everytime in the universe. He’d never seen anything like it before. 

When Baby reached out to put her hand on the Doctor’s, he pulled away out of reflex. His Time Lord sensibilities physically hurt now that he had seen her life. “That bad, huh?”

The Doctor tried to look more cheerful, but he knew that he was failing. “Baby, you’ve seen me fix a lot of problems in the universe, haven’t you?”

“Yeah?” She looked at him warily, and the Doctor couldn’t blame her for that.

He sighed. “Then trust me when I say that I am going to fix this.”

“Fix what?” Rose asked as she re-entered the room, setting a fresh tea pot down on the table. 

The Doctor reached up to run a hand through his hair. “Baby, you’re very existence hurts the universe.”

Instead of looking alarmed, the girl just looked resigned. “So you need to kill me, then?”

The Doctor couldn’t keep the look of horror off his face. “What? No! Of course not!” He thought of the Time War, and was pretty sure that that’s what Baby was thinking of too. “That was different,” he insisted, wanting to make sure that she understood. Even if it was possible to kill every single copy of you, which I don’t think it is, at least not without checking every second of time in every centimeter of the universe which would take an infinite amount of time, I still wouldn’t. What happened to you is not your fault. You didn’t wake up one day and decide to tear a hole in the fabric of reality. I wouldn’t do anything to harm you, I swear it.”

Rose looked back and forth between the Doctor and Baby, clearly sensing the need for a change in topic. “If you do exist in pretty much every time and place, how come the Doctor never noticed you until after the Time War?”

Baby shrugged. “I’d seen pictures of all the Doctor’s previous faces. Knowing myself, I probably went out of my way to avoid him if I ever saw him coming. Couldn’t do that with the new faces though, not at first, because I had never seen them growing up.” Rose kept asking harmless questions to try and keep the mood light, which the Doctor was grateful for. 

Eventually, the lights in the room dimmed, which was usually the TARDIS’ way of saying that the humans on board needed to get their sleep. “Your old room is still here,” he told Baby. “Exactly the way you left it.” She pulled the Doctor into another hug before leaving to follow the TARDIS’ directions to her room.

Once she was gone, the Doctor pulled Rose closer to him, and rested his head on her shoulder. She reached up to rub his back, patiently soothing him until he pulled away. “What are you going to do?”

The Doctor sank back down into his seat. “I don’t know. I know that I never told her, but she was- is- important.”

Rose gave him a knowing look. “She’s your daughter,” she said in a gentle voice. “I’m sure she knows that, even if you never told her.”

“She calls me Doctor,” he reminded her. “She could have called me anything else, but-”

Rose reached out to link her fingers with the Doctor’s. “For someone who likes to talk about how superior Time Lords are, you certainly get awfully caught up in human traditions.”

He sighed. “Maybe you’re right.”

Rose gave him that tongue-in-teeth grin that he loved so much. “Did I just hear you right? Can we get that on record?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes, even as fondness and love surged through their bond. Then he gave his wife a more serious look. “What do you think I should do?”

He could practically see the gears turning in her head as she thought about it. “Having all those Babys out there is bad, right? So maybe it would be fixed if there was just one? And I don’t mean by going and killing all the others, you already said that would be nearly impossible. I mean by putting them all back together again. By now all the excess time radiation stuff should have worn off of her, right? So it would be safe to be a single body again?”

The Doctor thought about it for a moment. His immediate reaction was to say no, but as he gave it further thought, he started to consider that maybe it wouldn’t be all that terrible of an idea after all. Just because she had been torn into millions of pieces didn’t mean that she was never meant to be put back together.


	4. Chapter 4

The Doctor wasn’t really sure of what he was doing, though that seemed to be more and more common for him as the years passed. He gave Baby a long look, taking in every detail of her face. He’d seen her so many times over the years, but none of it had mattered without the context of knowing how much she’d meant to him. Finally, he took a step back, and reached up to straighten his bowtie, suddenly feeling nervous. “Do you trust me?”

Her answer didn’t come immediately, though she did sound sure once she was ready to speak. “Yes. With my life, Doctor.”

He was surprised to hear her say that, considering everything she’d been through. He was even more surprised to realize that she was telling the truth. Rose reached out to take both of Baby’s hands, and gave the girl that brilliant smile that could bring entire galaxies to their knees. “I know that you don’t really know me, but I promise that we’ll both be right here for you the entire time.” 

Then she stepped back, and it was the Doctor’s turn to step forward. “There’s something else that you should know, Baby. If this succeeds, then that means you’ll have millions of lifetimes’ worth of memories all crammed into one head, and no human mind could possibly hold that much information. I’m not even sure if a Time Lord could.”

Baby bit her lip for just a moment before talking. “So you’re saying that you’re going to take my memories?”

The Doctor felt selfishly relieved that he wouldn’t have to actually say that to her. Instead, he just nodded. “I’ll have to if there’s to be any hope of you surviving.”

There was a brief pause, but then Baby nodded in return. “Do what you need to do, Doctor. I still trust you. Just make sure that I end up somewhere good, okay?”

“I promise,” the Doctor told her in his most serious voice. 

With that, Baby walked over to the glass tube that was part of the Doctor’s latest invention. It was hooked up to the TARDIS, because the Doctor hoped that the ship would be able to act as something of a beacon to whatever lingering amounts of radiation would be left behind in each of Baby’s bodies, while the Baby that was currently in the machine would serve as an anchor for all of the energy that would be flying at them. The Doctor really, really hoped that this would work.

After about twenty minutes, Baby grew bored and sank down to the floor of the glass tube, leaning her back up against the cylindrical wall around her. “So I know you said that it’s best not to open this thing until we’re done here-”

“I believe I actually said that it was crucial that we don’t,” the Doctor muttered. “But why listen to the guy who built it?”

“-but what happens if I get hungry?” Baby finished her question as if the Doctor hadn’t interrupted at all. 

The Doctor frowned. “Well, I’m not sure exactly how long this process is going to take, but if you get really desperate, we could teleport in some fish fingers and custard.”

Baby wrinkled up her nose. “You’re having me on, right? Your tastes haven’t really gotten that atrocious… right?”

“Just ignore him,” Rose advised the girl. “Usually works for me.”

“Oi! I’m right here!” 

Rose laughed before leaning over to give him a quick kiss, and then she walked over to sit down in front of the tube. She held up the book she’d been carrying. “Have you read this one yet?” When Baby shook her head, Rose grinned, and flipped it open to the first page. “Then I know how to keep you from getting bored.”

,,,

Rose was asleep on the floor, and the Doctor draped a blanket over her before sitting down next to her. Then he peered into the tube, where Baby was also asleep. It had been twenty hours and thirteen minutes since they’d started, but nothing had actually happened. He felt bad about leaving Baby locked in there for so long, especially if it turned out to be completely useless.

But then the monitors started making lots of exciting loud noises, and the Doctor leapt to his feet to check them out, mumbling a brief apology to Rose for startling her awake with his sudden movement. “Aha! Something’s happening!”

Rose hurried to his side and peered over his shoulder, then frowned at the shapes across the screen. “What’s it say?”

“Ah… I’m not actually sure. But rest assured that something is definitely happening.”

Both of them turned to look at the tube, and their eyes both widened at almost the same time. Golden light was rapidly filling the tube, and it looked just like regeneration energy. The Doctor turned back to the monitors to see if he could get a better idea of what exactly was happening. Baby soon woke up, grimacing as the light grew brighter around her. “Doctor?” He quickly looked up at her. “It’s so hot in here.” Her skin was quickly gaining a thick sheen of sweat. “Doctor I think I’m burning up.”

The Doctor had no idea what he could do to make it easier on the girl. He never found his regenerations to be particularly pleasant, but he couldn’t recall them ever making him feel as uncomfortable as Baby looked. “Hang on, I’m trying to figure this out!”

More golden light filled the tube, and Baby started banging on the glass. “Let me out of here! I’m going to burn! I’m going to burn again!”

The Doctor remembered the game station, all those years ago, when Rose had become Bad Wolf, and she’d said that it was killing her. “It’s still too much energy for her to contain. Even if there was just the tiniest drop left in each body, that’s still millions of tiny drops!” He smacked himself in the face, angry that he’d overlooked such an obvious problem just because he’d been so eager to fix Baby’s timeline. 

And now the poor girl was screaming, and the Doctor rushed over to the tube. He couldn’t open it with all that energy swirling around; who knows what kind of damage it could do. “It’s too much energy for you, Baby! You have to let go of it! You need to put it in something else!” He looked around desperately for an appropriate vessel, but there were no convenient hands lying around. 

Baby kept screaming, and then the glass around her suddenly shattered everywhere, and the following blast of energy knocked Rose and the Doctor to the other side of the room. Rose’s head smacked against the metal wall, and the Doctor didn’t know whether to go to her or to Baby. From where he was, he couldn’t even see whether Rose was breathing or not, and he could feel their bond weakening. But he could also see the agony on Baby’s face, and he didn’t know what to do. “I’m burning alive,” Baby whispered, though her whisper sounded loud enough to echo through entire mountain ranges. 

The Doctor could barely move from the force that was pressing him back. “You have to let go, Baby. Please!” 

Then he watched as some of that bright gold energy slipped off of Baby, and moved across the room to Rose. He could feel himself panicking, and was vaguely aware of his own voice shouting that that wasn’t what he’d meant, but then the light was just too blinding, and the pressure up against the Doctor was just too much, and he realized that he was going to go unconscious for the first time in ages.

,,,

When the Doctor woke up, he was in his bed. He had no idea how he’d gotten there, but he knew that he felt fine. Better than fine. More rested than he had in a very long time. He got up, and then he remembered what had happened, and alarm coursed through him. Where were Rose and Baby?

He ran out into the hallway, not caring that he had no shoes on, and trusted the TARDIS to lead him where he needed to go. He soon found himself just outside the kitchen, where he stopped to take in a deep breath before entering the room.

He paused at the sight that met his eyes. Rose was standing by the counter, her hair was much longer than it had been before, and was a darker blonde, more like what he had imagined her natural color to be. She was also humming something under her breath, though the tune was unfamiliar. “Rose,” 

She turned around, and he saw that she was cradling a baby in her arms, carefully holding a bottle up to the infant’s mouth. She grinned at the sight of the Doctor. “Look who’s finally awake.”

“What happened? Where’s Baby?”

Rose sighed, and then nodded down at the baby in her arms. “Remember what happened when Margaret the Slitheen looked into the heart of the TARDIS? I think that something similar happened here. This is Baby.” When the Doctor moved closer and peered down, he knew that Rose was right, because the baby in her arms was identical to the one he remembered taking in all those years ago. 

Rose carefully shifted the baby Baby into the Doctor’s arms before he could protest, but that wouldn’t hinder him from asking questions. “Our bond got so weak before, I was afraid that…” he trailed off, illogically worried that stating his fears out loud would make them come true. 

Even when he didn’t finish his sentence, Rose knew what he meant, just like she always did. “I think that Baby saw me unconscious and felt bad, so she put the extra energy into me. Can’t think of why else my hair would be like, or why I don’t have even the slightest bump on my head. Check my timeline. Please.”

The Doctor gulped, and then did as his wife asked, worried about what he might see. He was surprised to note that Rose’s timeline was very long and loopy, much longer than any human’s had the right to be. Then he looked at Baby’s, and saw that it was the same for her. The Doctor felt like he was about to collapse from the shock.

Rose quickly and efficiently guided him over to the nearest chair and gently pushed him down onto it, and then kissed the top of his head. “I did promise you forever, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” the Doctor whispered. “Remember how you once asked me if we could have any children together? And how you also told me that Baby was my daughter?”

Rose grinned. “Why Doctor, are you asking if I want to raise a baby with you?”

The Doctor nodded, forgetting how to be playful for a moment. “Yes.”

Rose took Baby back from him, and then leaned over to give him a quick kiss on the lips. “It would be my honor,” she told him, with all the joy and enthusiasm that she always seemed to feel going into each new adventure.

,,,

Across the universe, stories were told about the Doctor and his family. A husband, a wife, and a daughter, traveling together through all of time and space, solving problems, saving people, and generally enjoying life. It was seen as a sign of good luck if the supposedly immortal family were ever to visit, because it meant that they would fix whatever it was that needed fixing. And no matter how long or short a time they actually lived, their stories would always be told, and they would never be forgotten.


End file.
